Inflation: How Folks Cope

More work, fewer luxuries and deeper debts

Linda Collins, wife of a Chicago steel-worker and mother of two small children, has reluctantly gone to work as a night waitress on weekends to cover living expenses. Gladys Glazer, a retired secretary in Orlando, Fla., shops where second-quality vegetables and fruits are offered at reduced prices, and even there she shuns strawberries as an extravagance. Manhattan Lawyer Arthur Alexander delivers some letters in person to nearby business offices to save on postage.

These are several of the myriad ways in which Americans are struggling to adjust to accelerating inflation. Most people are winning the battle--for the moment. In April, the purchasing power of the average worker--wages minus inflation and taxes--advanced slightly, to 2.9% above what it was a year earlier. But such gains are too small and erratic to be trusted; over the past decade, rising prices and taxes have wiped out more than 97% of the pay increases of the average worker.

To some old folks with scant savings, inflation means hardship. Helen Ferrone, 68, a retired apartment-house manager, exhausted most of her savings during her late husband's long siege with cancer. Now, struggling to live on Social Security, she is trying to reduce the $60 a month that she must spend on medicines for a variety of ailments. Says she: "When I'm having a good day I try to cut down on the painkillers for my arthritis, though the doctor says I shouldn't, because the medicine should stay in my bloodstream all the time to be effective."

Working people are moonlighting or putting in overtime, and many wives are seeking jobs. Unable to pay his $220 rent out of the $164 a week that he takes home working five days as a New York City doorman, Benny Lescher now puts in a sixth day as an elevator starter. Charles Ogasapain, owner of the Arlington Candy Co. in Woburn, Mass., cannot afford additional help, because rising costs of labor and materials are chewing up his profits. So he works twelve hours a day himself. Cynthia Bako could not earn enough as a waitress in Portland, Ore., to put herself through college, so she joined the Army to get free courses in electronics. Says she: "The Army is the young person's only hedge against being steamrollered by the cost of living."

People of all classes are practicing small and not so small economies. Many have been driven by the rocketing price of meat, especially beef, to buy cheap cuts. This trend will probably not be reversed by the Carter Administration's decision last week to let in 200 million more lbs. of imported beef--15% above the present limit--mostly of the kind used in hamburgers and hot dogs. At best that move will keep the price of a pound of hamburger 5-c- below the level it would have hit at the end of the year.

Gene Ferris, an office manager of the Massachusetts Lottery in Boston, reports: "This year our vacation on Cape Cod will be two weeks instead of three or four, and we're bringing in another couple to hold down the rental." Marliss Levin, a suburban Chicago housewife, has taken classes in home plumbing and wiring, and has started to do her own auto repairs. Mary Sinclair, wife of a Detroit auto worker, has taken a part-time job as a housekeeper; her mother makes most of the clothes for the couple's two children, and Mary takes the kids to Sunday movie matinees (tickets: $1 each) to make up for the vacations the family can no longer afford.

A few Americans are exempt from the ravages of inflation. In some cities, a nouveau riche class is rising: childless young couples entering professions in which salaries are shooting up. Says Mary Rothschild, 26, a Seattle editor: "A few years back when I was in school, I owned two pairs of jeans and three shirts." Now she and her lawyer-husband Peter, 30, earn $40,000 a year; they own two cars and a half-interest in a sailboat, and they eat at good restaurants frequently.

These people, however, are in the minority; for most, inflation means a cramped life-style in the present, and fear about the future. It is raising a threat to the economy too. At the moment, consumers are maintaining a fast buying pace, largely by plunging into debt: installment debt rose a record $4 billion in March, $3.7 billion in April. But consumer-confidence surveys released last week by the Conference Board, a nonprofit business research group in New York City, and the University of Michigan showed a sharp drop in plans for major purchases, mostly because many consumers think they will need every penny to cover basic living costs.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.